


How The Other Half Live

by Baylock



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate universe - fantasy modern, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Secret Relationship, Sexual Content, Swearing, ackerbond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baylock/pseuds/Baylock
Summary: Levi doesn't really like the inner city. It's hot, filthy and full of far too many people. When he deigns to go there, riding the bullet train in from the military barracks on the outskirts, there's only ever one reason - Erwin Smith.Usually his office suffices, impersonal but stillhis, but this time Levi is asked to visit his high-rise and rather swanky apartment with its high price tag and glittering view of the city and the walls that surround it.
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	How The Other Half Live

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!
> 
> As mentioned in the tags, this is an AU. Set in a multi-fandom crossover world, the set-up story for this pair reflects canon. Levi was taken from the criminal underground in the multi-level city of Balterossa, and Erwin, politically important and high up in the military, lives in the walled city of Insomnia. 
> 
> Titans don't exist here, but Daemons do, though people from other countries within the setting might call them Fiends or Hollows. Whatever their name, their malice and drive remains the same -- they exist to consume. Formed from the Unsent souls of the dead, they coalesce into creatures superficially resembling the animals of the world, albeit with a bone-white mask near impossible to cut through, save for with the right weapons. Mist, Mist with a capital M, makes them stronger. 
> 
> Mist also mutates and affects people. It can affect ability or appearance, either in minor ways or very drastic. In the Kingdom of Lucis, these Mist-affected people are required to wear dog tags to identify them, making them stand out as dangerous, or _other_ , by the rest of the population. Mistants, that is, those mutated in any way by the Mist, are seldom employed, instead seeking work as Hunters, as Kingsglaives or as mercenaries. Mistants are casually and derogatorily referred to as 'Tags' to reflect their mandatory collaring. 
> 
> Levi in this work is both a Tag and a Kingsglaive. He was given the option to work for the Crown, in their mercenary branch of Daemon Hunters, instead of facing a prison sentence for his crimes in Balterossa. The circumstances reflect canon, albeit with the monsters and place names changed.
> 
> This work specifically contains places or concepts from the following works: Final Fantasy XV, Gangsta, Bleach, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy IX and The Last Remnant.
> 
> Knowledge of the works and universes mentioned above is not required for the understanding of this fic. 
> 
> Of course, it's all window dressing for the main theme of the work ... this is an Eruri fic. The military commander and the ex-criminal, with all of their unequal rank and forbidden intimacy.

Levi wrinkled his nose as he stepped off the bullet train and onto the platform.

The inside of the carriage had been the kind of stifling that only a mixture of a searing summer sun beating down onto a metallic shell, a horde of tightly packed commuters and the requisite faulty air conditioning of public transport could achieve. The stink of sweat, pungent takeaway dinners, hastily applied deodorant and cloying perfume had been as unpleasant as it had been unavoidable.

Outside wasn't much better.

It was muggy, the evening heat thick and soupy in spite of the late hour. Levi was used to heat. He'd grown up in the underground where the sun's rays failed to reach, but even there had days that outstripped Insomnia's swelter. Balterossa's was a dry desert heat, crisp and unrelenting without the humidity he'd learned to associate with the capital. The proximity to the Rim Skysea gave Insomnia's summers an oppressive stickiness that he wasn't accustomed to and it was worse in the city proper. All of Insomnia suffered under the sun in the hotter months, but the rural outskirts where he was stationed didn't have it as bad where pollution was concerned. Car fumes and the usual inner-city smoke and filth tainted the taste and smell of the air in a way that never quite reached the walls. Standing atop the wall it was possible to see the repulsive haze that hung around the high-rise buildings on the most humid days, especially when the murk was illuminated by the lights below. He felt fortunate that the stench of it didn't crawl out too far. 

He didn't know the city well, but he'd been given easy enough instructions for finding his destination. Head left after leaving the bullet station, continue up main street away from the citadel. That road took him past upmarket bars and restaurants with highly paid bouncers in their pristine, off-the-peg suits standing in the doorways like suits of armour down a castle corridor. The noise, the clatter and clamour and laughter of an evening's enjoyment spilled out around their bulky be-suited forms into the street. A pop like a gunshot made Levi pause, until he realised that the cheer that followed it wasn't as macabre as it sounded, but merely people excited about a new bottle of undoubtedly obscenely expensive champagne. 

Music blared out of doorways and open windows, each unique to the venue. Upbeat pop pumping out from a perky, modern bar vied for supremacy with the jazz fusion from the other side of the street, the saxophone strains oozing out of the black-and-bronze frontage like especially pretentious honey from a 20 gil on-the-door jar.

The sickly stench of a hot drain near the frontage ruined the illusion of opulence.

What then? Carry on past the Bank of Lucis and down an avenue on the right to the apartment block with the shiny marble facade. There was a guard outside it, standing quietly by one of the big, leafy potted plants that somehow thrived in the climate.

Levi hesitated before entering the building. He resisted the urge to glance around furtively, as though it was somewhere he shouldn't have been going into, and stepped over the threshold. Cold washed over him in the first instant, a rush of chilled air courtesy of the foyer's air conditioner. He expected it was pleasant if you got used to it, but when it happened suddenly it was like being plunged into ice water. He felt the hairs on his arms prickle as gooseflesh rose within his sleeves. The bright lights reminded him of a fancy department store he'd seen advertised on television, and everything was made from black marble or covered with a veneer of decorative brickwork and metal. 

There were two security guards standing in front of the elevators at the far end of the foyer, visibly armed and immaculate in their identical dark blue uniforms, eyes obscured by a twin set of sunglasses in spite of them being indoors after sunset. Behind the desk was a man who looked more prim and proper than anybody Levi had ever seen in his life. He looked a little like a lost news anchor or a boutique mannequin. His hair was neatly clipped, expertly parted and coated with enough miscellaneous Product to make it glisten even in the soft white light. His suit, complete with a tastefully mismatched floral tie, looked like it cost more than Levi'd earn in a month. Not bad for a desk clerk. His name badge read "Quintus".

"Can I help you, sir?" He asked, his voice barely even strained as he made a professional effort to be cordial. There was the briefest pause between his question and the 'sir' he'd quickly affixed to the end of it. He moved, nearly hovering in his seat, dithering as though he was about to stand or at least start slamming the security alert button he no doubt had strategically placed under the desk. 

There was something of the weasel about him, a twitchiness that made him seem nervous in spite of his professional courtesy. It was as if he was getting ready to politely but firmly insist that the riff-raff left the building, if you please, or the nice men over there would have to get involved and we don't want that, do we?

"Yeah," Levi said, approaching the desk, aware that his very presence probably made the room look untidy, and not giving a shit about it.

The apartment block was pretty famous for housing the rich, the influential and the famous. It practically codified the term 'swanky', with rent almost higher than its penthouse suites. Actors and singers nested there alongside government officials, all sequestered away from the hoi polloi behind armed guards and top of the line double-secure card entry systems.

"I'm here to see Erwin Smith," he said. "Apartment 21-4."

Erwin Smith fit into the latter category. Instead of being a performer, he sat on the council, allowed to because of his fancy private schooling and fancier surname. It was a simple name, but it was an Old one. The sort of Old that carried weight in the form of a capital letter and a fast track to government and military service, the sort that got an officer rank right off the bat, instead of having to work its way up from Private.

The clerk's expression turned skeptical, and Levi decided that he didn't like his pinched face. It seemed that he was too well trained to look patronising, but it was a close run thing. A line creased his forehead between his eyebrows and the eyes beneath them narrowed in a way that suggested that he thought Levi might be having him on in spite of the hollow upward curve of his lips. It wasn't unexpected. Levi hadn't come in his Glaive uniform and while he looked well turned out for the outskirts of Insomnia, as far as the interior was concerned, he was definitely out of place. His half-shaved hair wasn't a giveaway since the fashion had caught on beyond the Kingsglaive, but his trousers were the charcoal grey of the underclass barred from wearing the royal black and his shirt, though freshly washed and pressed, had greyed somewhat over the course of Levi's ownership. His boots, polished of course, showed the unmistakable signs of wear, something he got the feeling was practically a crime around these parts. The snow white cravat around his neck wasn't fooling anybody, but at least it covered up the dog tags beneath. He knew that if those had been on show, the armed men at the opposite end of the room would be looking rather less passive already.

It didn't help that, clothes aside, Levi knew that he had the sort of face that people associated with the kind of rough-around-the-edges asshole that participated in bar fights for the kick of it, and who looked rather like he'd be the one holding the broken bottle.

"Mr. Smith? I'll just call through on the com." 

Levi narrowed his eyes, and rather thought that he made a song and dance of it. The clerk picked up the phone with a delicate hand and pressed the relevant buttons, but only after a moment of consideration. He cleared his throat delicately during the burst of static that could be heard through the handset. 

"Mr. Smith? You have a visitor, it's a --" he looked at his waiting guest expectantly.

"Levi." 

"Levi, yes. ... Yes, he is," the clerk's gaze raked over Levi where he stood, causing a moment of hesitation. No doubt he was looking for that bottle. "Yes. All right, I'll buzz him through." 

Levi narrowed his eyes again. He knew exactly what confirmation Erwin had asked about and he knew without needing to ask that the word 'short' had been involved. Asshole.

"If you get into the elevator, it will take you to that floor," the clerk said, putting a subtle amount of emphasis on the second-to-last word of the sentence. "The doors on the floors are numbered. Mr. Smith's will be apartment four, floor twenty one." 

_That_ floor. It wouldn't let him wander the block, then. The elevator was to be controlled from the desk, only opening on the right floor to spit him out where appropriate. He nodded and walked to the double doors, glancing blandly at the guards who hadn't moved a muscle since he entered.

Inside the lift soft music played, covering up the hum of the motion. The song had been popular about a decade ago, and was only vaguely familiar to him. The vocals had been stripped and all of the instruments were replaced by a bland lounge piano, leaving the piece dry and devoid of any semblance of personality. Trying to ignore it, he looked around. The polished wood interior seemed almost tastelessly expensive and the metal panel, not lit up for his journey, looked too modern against the woodwork. Fortunately the ride was short.

The hallway that the doors opened into continued the theme of the ridiculously plush, especially considering that it was _just_ a hallway. The carpet was thick and deep in spite of being laid in a corridor and there wasn't a single chip on the paintwork. The wallpaper wasn't quite tacky enough to fall in line with what you'd expect of a posh hotel, but this was no hotel. People lived here. Perhaps they wanted real luxury, every single day, rather than a temporary imitation while on vacation. The motion-sensitive spotlights that came on and winked out as he walked were rimmed in gold. The same gold as the numbers on the doors, it turned out. He wondered, vaguely, if it was paint or plated.

He couldn't hear a single sound from any of the rooms. Not a muffled word, a musical beat or distant laughter. Levi wasn't sure if it was because the occupants were unusually considerate of their neighbours or if the entire complex just had top of the line soundproofing. 

There weren't too many apartments between the lift and Erwin's home.

He knocked, half expecting a familiar voice to drift through the wood and invite him in. Instead, nothing happened. He almost knocked again, pausing to look for a missed doorbell or buzzer on the off-chance that it was the soundproofing, and that it worked both ways, when it opened and Erwin smiled down at him, eyes dark in the dim light.

"Found me all right, then." 

It was a redundant statement, but Levi could almost wrap the warmth in his tone around himself. He huffed through his nose and shrugged his shoulders, deliberately nonchalant. "Looks that way." 

Erwin stepped back out of the doorway, allowing his guest inside. Levi had expected the door to open straight into the main room, but instead there were signs of a livingroom and kitchen visible at the end of a short hall, with two closed doors off it. The bedroom and bathroom, he presumed. 

"There's a cubby for your shoes," Erwin said, closing the door behind him.

So there was. Levi eyed the three pairs of Erwin-sized shoes, all polished, all expensive, all tucked away in a hollow near the door. His own, when put beside them, looked small in comparison. He suspected some people probably kept slippers for the guests there, but Erwin didn't, so Levi walked after him barefooted after his socks had been tucked into the tops of his boots. The air conditioning apparently extended to the rooms, for the stuffiness of the outdoors didn't return, nor did the smog of the city attempt to crawl down his throat, allowed in by a window left carelessly open. Erwin didn't have it as cool as the foyer downstairs, but it was definitely a comfortable number of degrees below the ambient temperature of the streets.

The living area was tastefully open plan, with the tiles of the kitchen providing a point of separation from the rest of the wooden floor. The kitchen shone with chrome, polished granite and stainless steel. The living room, conversely, was comfortable in a furniture show-room sort of way. The sofa filled an L-shaped space, and the area contained within the sofa's comfort zone was carpeted.

Further in, he could see a window that covered the entire wall. It was excessive, really.

"No expense spared, huh?" Levi muttered, eyes scanning every surface, taking in every detail. There was a coffee machine in the kitchen. An actual machine dedicated purely to just making coffee. It stood next to a microwave, something else he'd only heard about. The fridge was double-doored and one of them even had a water dispenser in it. 

"Did you have any trouble with the desk?" Erwin asked. 

"Nah," Levi said, crossing the room to the window. It turned out that what he'd taken for a window was actually a set of sliding doors, with a balcony beyond it. There was a plant sitting out there, a sad and neglected looking thing with broad-if-browning leaves, and a single chair. Erwin clearly didn't entertain much. Even without going outside Levi could see over the darkened city, its shadowed buildings all lit up by pinpricks of fluorescent light. " _Quintus_ looked at me like he wanted to kick me out, but he wasn't too much of a prick. I figured he took me for a rent boy."

Erwin gave a soft snort of laughter. "You don't look much like a rent boy."

Levi looked at Erwin in the reflection of the window, unsure whether he was being insulted or not. He shrugged. "Maybe he just thought you have low standards for rentboys. He might just think that the bigshot citadel committee member likes a bit of rough."

"I doubt that. This is an expensive place," Erwin said. "People don't bring rentboys, escorts or bits of rough back here."

"You did."

Levi watched Erwin's expression change in the glass, his translucent image overlaid on the cityscape. He scowled, or near as damn it. His thick eyebrows drew together and his mouth pressed itself into a line.

"Levi..." 

Levi gave half a shrug. He wasn't offended or upset that Erwin kept him away from his personal life, if not his work. He understood why he needed to -- agreed with it, even. A member of Insomnia's council spending time with a member of the Kingsglaive was unusual enough in and of itself. A member of Insomnia's council spending time with one of the members of the Kingsglaive drafted in to serve there instead of living out an extended prison sentence was much worse. 

Erwin's reflection grew larger in the glass until the weight of his hands settled on Levi's shoulders. "You're not a bit of rough."

Levi almost smiled. Almost. The gentleness in Erwin's tone was a welcome sound after a day in the barracks on the city's edge. There, all the words spoken were hard and edged, rough with anger, confrontation or ribald jokes. 

"Pretty rough, though, right?" he tilted back his head to look up into Erwin's eyes and closed his own as he leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, moving his hands to his waist. Despite himself, he felt a little like how he imagined a dog felt upon hearing his master's voice. Content. Warm. Perhaps even a little happy. 

Erwin smiled. "Pretty rough, yes."

But not as rough as he had been. Not as rough as the thug who had robbed and killed in the under-streets of Balterossa, the criminal who had been headhunted by a bigshot Insomnian recruiter, who had taken him and Farlan and Isabel from to a life of mercenary servitude. Not as rough as the man who had cut down four Daemons in the Mist. Not as rough as the little shit who had held a blade to the throat of this man twice, once in the sand and once in the rain.

"What do you think of the view?" Erwin asked, squeezing his shoulders. 

Levi blinked to clear his eyes of the blur that had settled over them like a fog. A bright, fuzzy coalescence of lights separated and sharpened back into pinpricks. He couldn't see the stars above, not this close to the source of the light pollution and summer haze, but the neon colours beyond the glass did a fair job of standing in. 

"Yeah," Levi said, swallowing to moisten his dry throat. "Not bad." 

"Can I get you a drink?" Erwin asked, voice bright, pulling away, but not before he leaned again to press a quick kiss to his temple, apparently unhurt by Levi's characteristic downplaying of wonder.

He half turned as Erwin withdrew, suddenly missing the warmth of his hands and the way his breath stirred his hair. There were occasions when he felt as though he was spending too much time with a man he had no business spending it with. And then there were times where he found himself filled with the empty ache of his absence and the deep hollow feeling he was left with when Erwin was out of reach. He felt that especially keenly whenever they parted, when the heat of his hands or his lips left a coldness in their wake. 

He shook the feeling away and trained his eyes on the window again, "tea," he said. 

Erwin walked to the kitchen area, a liveliness in his step that Levi seldom saw in his office and he'd spent a lot of time in his office. Originally it had been somewhere to loiter, to avoid the other Glaives, those he liked and those he didn't, but over time it had become something of a sanctuary, an institutional-beige temple of calm, surrounded by Erwin's leather-topped desk and leather-bound books and the comforting smell of both. The shallow short-pile carpet felt little better than tile underfoot, but there was a warmth to the room that could be achieved with just the green-shaded lamp lit, the curtains drawn and Erwin's steady breathing as he worked behind his desk.

He listened to his complaints about his workdays, and colleagues, and in turn shared with him the less sensitive of the gripes he had in his own position. He allowed Levi to sleep on his office couch while he worked at his desk, and in spite of a long history of insomnia (the irony wasn't lost on either of them) it never took him long to drift off to the sound of a scratching pen and shuffling papers. It had surprised Levi the first time it had happened and upon waking and he'd peered around, like a dozing commuter concerned they'd missed their stop, but doubted Erwin had noticed.

The second time, he'd awoken with a jacket over him.

Going beyond the Wall had started out as a treat for Levi, in spite of the reason and the circumstances of his servitude. The trips represented freedom, fresh air not corralled by walls, and the wide, rolling landscape ahead of him, but as time went on he found himself yearning, even as he cut through Daemon after Daemon, to return to Insomnia, to Erwin. He hadn't lost the sense of wonder he'd felt at the sound of wind sighing through the boughs of a tree, rustling every branch and leaf, or that which had filled him at the sight of a glassy lake, a mirror of the sky overhead, rippling as something from beneath kissed the surface from below, but those things seemed to fade to grey the longer he stayed away.

The colour seemed to return when he reported back to him, whether with news or his kill-count.

Levi could barely see the wall from where he stood, a white line in the background, visible beyond the buildings, stark against the night sky, and yet dull in comparison to the sparkling lights of the city in front of it. He watched a distant train, lights glowing within the carriage, the people too distant to make out. He didn't envy them, not tonight, when the stifling heat made the journey one of sweaty torture, nor on any other, when it was routine, half empty, and filled with the sort of silence that lingered in any place being kept carefully and deliberately free of conversation.

He considered the train a necessary chore to reach Erwin's office, a line different to the one he'd taken into the city proper tonight, but he found it easy to zone out and watch the world outside the carriage whizzing by in a blur. Through the window, woodland and seemingly endless rolling fields gave way to the long gardens and large, open houses of expensive suburbia. The houses grew smaller and more dense as the city rushed up to meet the train, and the nearly quaint painted shop fronts of villages were quickly supplanted by the professional billboards and fluorescent signs of the populated district through which it entered and then left on the other side, heading for a clean and proper business ward away from Insomnia's bustling center.

It had bothered him at first, the whispers of the other commuters and their curious eyes on him, taking in his uniform, his tags and, on one memorable occasion, the bloodstain on his shirt, but he had learned to ignore it. They didn't see many Glaives. Or Tags, for that matter.

He turned from the window to see Erwin busying himself in the kitchen, such as it was. There was a light in his eyes absent from his office, for all it was a part-time residence as much as a workplace, a little spark of domesticity at the simple things. He'd made him tea before -- his office was kitted out like a simple apartment, complete with a small room and bed to better facilitate long working hours, but he looked more comfortable in his own home.

"Sugar?" Erwin asked, a spoon hovering over a small bowl of the white stuff. 

"No," Levi shrugged. He resisted saying 'I'm sweet enough'. They both knew it wasn't true.

The kettle boiled, doing its best to fill the spacious room with the low and lively burble of bubbling water and Levi joined him in the kitchen area, watching him mildly. Erwin had set a metal ball inside a pretty blue and white patterned teacup, and a chain attached to a ring at one end snaked up and over the rim. A soft click brought the water's dance to a slow stop and Erwin poured it into the cup, filling it.

Dark tea swirled out from the ball, snaking through the almost invisible holes that speckled its surface. At the barracks, Levi just used a teapot and strainer. It was cheaper.

"Fancy," he observed, picking up the box of tea and giving it a sniff. It smelled expensive and there was a vague citrus quality to it that brought the curve of a smile to Levi's thin lips. That Erwin had bought the cup, infuser and tea just for him was a fact that went unsaid. "Not having one?"

"I have coffee," Erwin said, nodding in the vague direction of the machine he had spotted earlier. There was a red light on it now that had been dark when he'd walked in. It glowed ominously from next to the microwave. He gave a smile as Levi's nose creased in disgust.

"This late?" Levi glanced at the dark sky outside the window. Given the season, that put the time at well past ten.

"It's decaf," Erwin reassured him.

"Then what's the point?" 

"You might not believe this," Erwin said, pouring a measure of milk into his mug, "but some of us drink it for the taste."

"You're right," Levi agreed, pulling the infuser out of the teacup by the chain once the brew had achieved the right reddish hue. "I don't believe that." 

Levi carried his teacup, complete with its matching saucer, over to the sofa while Erwin filled his mug with the undoubtedly acrid-smelling filth he'd opted for instead. It was a nice sofa, too. Soft and textured and all too easy to sink into. The one at the office wasn't bad, but there was a harder sort of waiting room quality to it that resisted ass-grooves that set this one apart. He put the cup onto the coffee table with a _clink_ and ran his fingers over the sofa's cushion, eyes on Erwin.

"So what do you think your doorman will think?" Levi asked.

"Of what?" Erwin raised his voice over the clatter of a metal spoon against the inside of his ceramic mug as he stirred.

"You know what," Levi gave him a flat look. "You bringing scum back here."

"You're not-" Erwin started with a sigh, carrying his drink over to where Levi was sitting, ignoring the expression of his face. He put the mug beside the smaller teacup and sat down beside him.

"Yeah, yeah," Levi huffed, waving away the reassurance with the careless flick of one hand. "It's a joke. You gonna get any comeback off it?"

It was possible. Erwin might not be an actor or singer, but Levi got the feeling that the King's council were expected to behave as though they were in the public eye. Scandals featuring politicians weren't, after all, that unusual. 

"Probably not," Erwin said, noncommittal. "I doubt it. Not unless you made a scene."

"Of course I didn't make a scene," Levi rolled his eyes as if the very idea offended him with its sheer impossibility. "They didn't see my tags, either. If they had, the bouncers would have stopped impersonating shop mannequins pretty fuckin' quick."

Erwin's eyes were drawn to the cravat, apparently in spite of himself, considering how pointedly he stopped looking when he saw Levi's eyes flick up a touch.

"That's probably for the best," he said, after a moment. There was a sad note to his voice that Levi didn't miss.

"Definitely for the best," he corrected. "My foreign name was probably enough of a red flag." It was probably lucky that he hadn't said more than a few words to Quintus, or he'd have picked up that he wasn't from Insomnia quickly, his rougher accent and harsher Balterossan dialect a tell. Maybe he had anyway. 

Erwin looked up. "You aren't foreign."

Levi could have laughed at the mildly indignant look on his face. For all Erwin Smith was a genius tactician and responsible for weighing in on the decisions made by the Crown, some things didn't reach him like they did the Glaives. He might mingle with the lower classes, but he was still a white stag wading through shin-deep mud when he did it. He saw the castles owned by the Crown and given over to Kingsglaive, not the graffiti-covered paintwork of the deprived areas of the city, the poor that huddled beneath the underpasses unable to afford even a dwelling in a slum, let alone an apartment.

"I'm not Insomnian," Levi pointed out.

"But you _are_ Lucian."

"Barely. That's not enough for the people here," Levi said, picking up his cup by the rim, an ingrained habit that Erwin had long got used to, for all it looked strange. "You know people consider the Kingsglaive a necessary evil. They only tolerate us moving amongst them because they're told we keep them safe from the Daemons."

It wasn't wrong. Erwin's expression said he knew it. Insomnia might have started reaching out beyond the wall some decades ago, but the 'us and them' mindset that existed between Insomnia and those who lived outside it was a stain that was hard to wash out. Many of them barely considered the country beyond the walls to be part of their world, equating it with Niflheim or the Union instead of something that fell under the responsibility of their king. "That's largely because it's an open secret that there are criminals in its number."

"So why are they dicks to the Hunters and people from Galahd and Lestallum?" Levi sipped his tea, the awkward angle he held his cup at being mastered with years of practice. "It's because they aren't Insomnian. Unless we're Crown Citizens, we're foreigners. We don't have the right accent or names for this place. Nyx only gets a pass because he's the posterboy and he's only the posterboy because he has a pretty face and an Insomnian name."

First name, anyway. His last name sounded foreign to Levi, though Galahd had apparently been separated from Insomnian influence for decades. Long enough for different names to pop up, names so far removed from the grand Lucian ideal that they were regarded poorly. 'Ulric', if anything, sounded dangerously like a Niflheim name to him, rather like 'Ackerman'.

"Not every Insomnian has a typically Insomnian name," Erwin said. 

"Bullshit," Levi picked up Erwin's coffee mug for him. "Even Cor does and he's a commoner. Even your desk monkey downstairs does."

Erwin laughed into his coffee at Levi's prickliness on the subject. "All right, you win," he said.

"It doesn't mean that the Kingsglaive should be treated differently. You do a valuable job for the city," he said. 

"Yeah yeah," Levi sighed. "Valuable contribution, blah blah, keep the good citizens safe from Daemons."

"Well, yes," Erwin said. "But they want to put you on exploration, too. We had a meeting about it. All the ruins in Duscae are from the Solheim empire, thousands of years old. They date back to before the Exodus. They want you to look at them."

"The big-ass creepy glowing ones?" Levi asked.

"Mmn," Erwin said through a mouthful of coffee. He swallowed. "People say they're full of Daemons." 

"Yeah, and they only open when its dark, so if they want to test that theory, they can help themselves, I'll be at a Haven," Levi said, taking another mouthful of his tea. It wasn't bad tea, not at all. Erwin didn't have bad taste, for a coffee drinker. "Not getting eaten."

"You don't think you can handle it?" Erwin asked, raising his eyebrows. He reached straighten the knot of Levi's cravat, fingers lingering on the fabric.

"Of course I can handle it," Levi said, watching his hand. 

"But you'll refuse to go?" Erwin raised his eyebrows a fraction.

"Depends on the perks," Levi said, giving his shoulders a shrug shallow enough not to spill his tea. Then he sighed and put his cup down. "They're gonna start talking if I'm here often, you know. It's going to look weird. Your office --"

"Is not my home," Erwin finished. 

It might have had a bed, and it might well have seen more than its fair share of illicit encounters between them, but it was just his office. There was a risk there, but a uniform attracted less attention than a commoner walking into an expensive inner-city apartment building would. It also invited fewer questions than a doorman might ask. It kept Levi's own questions to a minimum, as well. His home was personal, soft. It was full of his own things, his own smell, his own touch. His office... was the place for liaisons between a soldier and a superior officer breaking the rules of the system for mutual satisfaction. His home... 

"Yeah, but..."

Erwin picked at the knot of his cravat with careful fingers, undoing it with practiced ease. He turned his dog tags over, straightening them out. "I can give you a Domestic Cleaning pass if you're that worried," he said, letting the tags fall back to rest against his chest. 

Levi stared at him. "You should have done that in the first damn place," he said, the huff that was threatening to rise in him falling flat. 

"I thought it might be impersonal," Erwin admitted, tugging the strip of fabric out from around his neck. He laid it over the back of the sofa, settling his hand against the side of Levi's neck once he had. Erwin's fingertips were soft, largely uncallused, and his hands, so often rough on him, were gentle. 

He didn't mind rough, rough was how they were together. He liked the pressure of Erwin's fingers, of his hands pushing him against his desk, or holding him to his bed, the bruises temporary scars where the stress of the day left him, while Erwin worked his own out his own way, breath ragged, until they were both spent and panting. 

Gentle had used to scare him. He'd gone to Erwin expecting to be hurt, expecting to leave later that night with aches and marks and a feeling of contentment that he hadn't arrived with. He'd longed for the grip of strong hands on his hips, the breathlessness brought about by a hand at his throat and the dizzying climax that followed. He'd expected the roughness of fingernails pressing into his flesh with a too-hard carelessness, the pull of a rough hand in his hair, the moment of desperate choking he pretended he didn't enjoy when Erwin kept him pushed down just a little too far. It was uncomplicated. 

Gentle was different. Gentle was frightening. Gentle was a soft sigh of his name down his ear when Erwin couldn't get any closer to him, any deeper in him, it was the languid press and slide of his tongue against his own, the feeling of his lips, the trail of his fingers over skin that seldom saw the light of day, let alone the touch of another. Gentle was vulnerable. It made him think too much on the train home, stare without seeing, made sleep harder to catch once the castle's walls were back around him in place of the leather and soft green light of Erwin's office. Gentle didn't happen often.

Gentle was the kiss Erwin pressed to his lips, and the way Levi returned it. It was the way he moved his hand to the back of his neck, fingers brushing the shorn hair hidden beneath the longer parts. Gentle was the look in his eyes when he pulled away and the smile he wore.

Levi cleared his throat and licked the faint taste of too-sweet coffee from his lips. At any other time he might have complained, but it didn't quite seem right now.

"... we gonna ruin your fancy-ass sofa, or..." he glanced behind him, in the vague direction of where his room must be.

"Not here," Erwin said. 

Levi fought the instinct to hesitate. Most of their nights together took place in his office, only occasionally straying to his room there. They'd got more use out of his desk, and his chair, than his bed. It was used on occasion, Levi had even been invited to sleep there sometimes, if not often enough, but it was reserved for long days, for when standing was too much like hard work. Levi liked those days. They were often as rough as a quickie in the office, but being able to wind the bedclothes around his hands, or bite into the quilt when it got too much made a nice change from raking the glassy varnish of his desk with his fingernails and gritting his teeth until they ached.

He still obeyed his request. He got to his feet, leaving his cravat and teacup and all the rest behind, and trailed after him, through the door being held open by Erwin's hand.

He didn't get much chance to look around before Erwin kissed him again, leaning down as Levi rose onto bare tiptoes to meet his lips. Undressing, at least when they bothered, had often been feverish, desperate, and more than once Levi had found himself re-attaching buttons in the wee hours. This time Erwin slid each one out of its hole carefully, without any sign of rushing. 

He pushed open his shirt, his warm hands open and flat on his skin. He ran them up his chest from his sides and over his shoulders, until the garment fell to the floor where it stayed, a small pile of well-washed fabric, pale in the dark.

The rest came off in short order. Belts were unbuckled, buttons were undone, clothes were discarded, all except for the chain and tags around Levi's neck. The room, fairly spacious even with the near-darkness to mask its true size, was illuminated only by the dim light from the window. It didn't matter; their hands found what they needed using familiarity as a map. 

Erwin brushed Levi's cheek, the backs of his fingers warm. "Bed," he told him, the word a soft suggestion instead of an order. 

Levi did as he asked, stealing another kiss before he got himself into position. The mattress was comfortable beneath him without being too deep, and he could smell the fresh scent of detergent on the sheets. They felt soft under his hands and his knees.

Erwin's weight curved the bed behind him and his breath hitched as warmth covered him, Erwin's larger form fitting quite neatly up against him with one notable exception. A kiss to the back of his neck made Levi's eyes fall half closed, the near-possessive affection of the action not lost on him. 

"Turn over," Erwin said, his breath ghosting over his ear, lips brushing the edge. 

Then he moved away, taking his warmth with him.

Levi looked at him over his shoulder, out of the corner of his eye, and turned onto his back. The window's moonlight made Erwin look pale, the sun in his hair washed out to silver, but it picked out every shadow, every line and muscle on him. Levi seldom saw him fully undressed, such was the nature of their evenings together, so he drank in the sight of his broad shoulders, smooth skin and definitely very erect cock like it was something to be savoured.

He smirked in spite of himself, in spite of the prone position he was in and the niggling sense of exposure he felt at it. It was nice knowing that he had that effect on him, being reminded oh-so-visually of it. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and watched him gather what he needed. 

"You gonna take all night fucking about with that shit?" He asked. 

"You know what they say about patience, do you not?" Erwin said, opening the small packet he'd taken from the bedside table with deft, careful fingers. 

"Yeah, that it can fuck off," Levi replied, settling back down to take the weight off his arms and put one hand to better use. 

"I... don't think that's quite right," Erwin murmured, rolling the condom down over his length with swift, practiced ease. "Now..." He kneeled on the bed, a graceful movement that showed the muscles moving beneath his skin. 

Levi protested as he gripped his wrist in one hand, pulling it from his cock, and pinned it above his head, kissing him to silence, even as he pulled against the hold. Levi stared up into his eyes after he pulled away, the blue darkened to black, as Erwin's other hand replaced his own displaced one for a few strokes. It wasn't enough before it left him, moving to push his legs apart instead. 

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he said. 

"Then stop making me wait," Levi said, more quietly than he'd intended. 

Erwin did just that. Letting go of him, he reached for a bottle of lubricant and spread it over his fingers. Levi didn't even roll his eyes knowing what was next. He lay there, feeling too open and far too exposed, the chill of the conditioned air cold on his skin. He resolved not to complain of this particular step of the dance, awkward though it was, but found the chance to taken from him by Erwin's mouth before he could open his own.

The kiss was a distraction, the soft pressure of lips and the slide of tongues something to take his mind off the always-invasive press of wet fingers into him. Levi's hand found the back of Erwin's neck, the rough pads of his fingers doing little more than rest there, without press or force, not an attempt to hold onto him, just to touch. He gasped into Erwin's mouth as he angled his fingers just perfectly... 

When he pulled back, Levi saw the tiniest smile on his face and he returned the look with a flat one of his own. To his credit, he resisted calling him an asshole, but only because he didn't quite trust his voice. 

Erwin smoothed more of the lubricant over himself and Levi watched his hand, knowing exactly how that was going to feel pushed into him, Erwin's hips as close as they could get, his hot, exertion-laboured breath against the back of his neck -- no. Not this time. 

Levi swallowed. "Erwin," he said.

"I know," he replied. 

Levi looked up at him, angling his hips to make it easier, his heels taking the weight. Bent over a desk he just stood with his legs apart and let Erwin do as he wished, breath fogging the desk, a distance in spite of the intimacy. Now... he could see Erwin's face, the expression he wore, the slight parting of his lips as he used one hand to position himself against him. He saw the crease of his forehead as he exerted a little pressure, pushing past the initial resistance. He watched his jaw tighten, his teeth pressed together behind his lips... 

None of it took away from what he felt. The initial breach never failed to draw a stifled sound from his throat. He wanted to turn his head, close his eyes so Erwin couldn't see that his complaints were just window dressing for his contrary nature, but he couldn't take his eyes off him, not even as he pushed in further, further still, not even as his mouth fell open in spite of himself. 

Erwin was always a lot to take. Levi had imagined that it would become easier over time, but he never quite got used to the feeling, for all it set his nerves alight in all the right ways. It wasn't bad, not really, just ... very Erwin, at the forefront of the situation, insistent, quite fucking perfect in its altogether _wrong_ way. 

Sometimes he didn't give him time to breathe before he moved, taking from him what he wanted and pleasuring him afterwards, other times he started as he meant to go on, building a rhythm for them both, until it was too much, and Levi came before he had the chance to use his hand. This time he started slowly, easing in and drawing out with a deliberate pace that seemed designed to frustrate and please him both at once. 

It wasn't until he'd perfected the pace that he leaned down to press a kiss to Levi's mouth, a kiss that wasn't returned but for a brief, open-mouthed attempt, quickly abandoned in favour of a low groan as he hit the right spot, again, and again, distracting him from all but that. 

He found that he liked the closeness. The warm weight of him usually pressed against his back was there in his sight this time, able to be touched with his hands, held there, and so Levi did, one on his back, one on his shoulder, not wanting him to straighten back up, but to stay there, filling his vision as well as his ears with the pretty little sounds he seldom seemed to make back in the office.

Levi didn't notice that his nails were biting into the skin of Erwin's back, or that of his shoulder, not until Erwin pinned one of his hands for the second time, though he didn't protest, not as he slid his fingers between his own. 

"E...Erwin," Levi said, dragging in a breath. "Not so fucking ... slow..." 

He saw Erwin's smile in the dark, half expected him to keep up the pace purely to piss him off, but after a few strokes he increased his speed, head bowed, teeth pressed together. Levi didn't bother to keep himself quiet -- he wasn't worried about somebody walking past the locked door and hearing what was going on inside, what definitely _shouldn't_ be going on inside, or about being caught. 

With one hand pinning Levi's down, Erwin used the other to grip and stroke him, the sudden heat around his cock enough to make him groan. On any other occasion, Erwin might have commented on the altogether rather lewd sound that escaped his throat, but this time he didn't, though his movements, both that of his hips and his hand, increased in urgency. 

Levi came first, his nails digging into him, his other hand gripping his tightly, not bothering to bite back the profanity that the nicer surroundings simply couldn't keep at bay. He drew in a long breath as Erwin's thrusts became markedly less measured, his careful strokes giving way to abandon as he tightened around him, the spasms of Levi's orgasm ruining the last of his control. 

The rough noise Erwin made when he finished, some moments later, was music to Levi's ears.

The silence in its wake would have been ringing had it not been for their panting breaths. Levi basked in the feeling of warm contentment, stroking his fingers through Erwin's damp hair as he breathed hard against his shoulder.

He dropped his hand to his side before too long, as Erwin gathered himself enough to pull away and clean up and dispose of what he needed to dispose of in the minute that followed. 

Levi simply lay there, allowing Erwin to wipe clean his stomach with the cloth he evidently had on hand for that purpose. He knew him too well. When Erwin settled beside him, Levi turned his head to look at him, enjoying his moon-kissed and disheveled appearance. 

It wasn't often he got to see Erwin's usually immaculate hair in a state of sweaty disarray and he pushed it back off his face with a careful hand. 

"How was it for you?" Erwin joked, catching Levi's hand in his own to kiss his fingertips. 

"Yeah, not bad," Levi said, rolling his eyes, smiling a bit despite himself. 

Erwin pulled Levi close, and he didn't protest, sweaty and disgusting though he was. He felt like he needed it, like the closeness was something he wanted, rather than wanted to avoid, like moving away too soon would be worse than the mildly unpleasant feeling of his damp and rapidly cooling skin. He shivered, pressing his cheek to his shoulder, comfortable in his arms.

He could see the burning numbers on a clock in the dimness of the room, a digital thing that sat on the bedside table closest to Erwin.

"... Y'know, I can probably get the last train if I leave in half an hour," he said.

"You're leaving?" Erwin asked, the disappointment in his voice almost palpable. 

Levi hadn't stayed with him often in the office, but it happened on occasion, if their schedules worked out. He'd caught enough late trains that he was half used to having a carriage to himself, his expression enough to deter those suffering from carpark syndrome or late-night drunkenness who might otherwise want to share a conversation with a captive audience. 

"I was--"

"Stay," he said, tightening the grip around him a fraction. "I want you to. I bought breakfast in and there's more tea for the morning..?"

When he'd stayed, it had been nice. It meant that Erwin draped his arm over him, sleeping close enough to half-cover him, his breath slow and steady down his ear, the rhythm enough to lull even Levi to sleep. He slept well then, and woke up rested instead of still tired, feeling warm and comfortable, the bed soothing away the aches that lived in his shoulders and back, a problem exacerbated by the chair he usually caught a few hours in back at his quarters in the castle just out of the shadow of the wall.

This bed was even more comfortable, and breakfast suggested that he wouldn't be on the first train home, packed in amongst city-dwellers who worked further out, all as tired as him.

"Well, when you put it that way..."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to anybody who read this! 
> 
> I know the AU setting can be offputting for many, so thank you for getting to the end of it. I hope you enjoyed it! If you didn't, I'm grateful that you took the time to read it anyway. c:


End file.
